The housing stock in the Dunbar area of Vancouver has undergone significant change in the past five years. Originally a working class neighbourhood with many quite modest homes surrounded by lovely gardens, it is now a neighbourhood that 99% of the people working in Vancouver cannot afford because the replacement homes are built to the maximum footprint and cost millions. Greenspace has been reduced. Included on this website are photos of many (not all) of the disappeared houses.
View Teardowns in the Dunbar area of Vancouver, BC in a larger map

Demolitions West of the Dunbar Community Centre

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Disappeared Detroit

We spent the morning of August 20 exploring one of the depopulated areas of Detroit.  I wanted to see the urban gardens and farms that have been created there.  Uninhabited derelict houses have been removed, and in some areas grass has been planted and is mowed.  Other areas have been left to grow wild.  Streets are deserted, and it is very quiet like being in the countryside, despite seeing buildings in the distance.  The infrastructure is crumbling.  It was eerie to think of all the working people in those neighbourhood, now gone along with their homes. Where are they now?

Follow my other blog for the photos and more comment: 

http://growingedibles.blogspot.ca/

Monday, August 6, 2012

Disappeared, But Not Demolished!

This 97-year-old Heritage B home has left the Dunbar area for a new setting on Vancouver Island. 


Although the house appears large, especially with its much-emulated third storey, its foot print was surprisingly small:
Although I totally applaud the recycling of this house, I wonder whether any new house, no matter how luxurious, constructed on the site will ever attain a "Heritage B" rating.  Is it to our neighbourhood's benefit to lose this kind of well-maintained history?